VGA Manga and Anime Resources

AMANO AI

Ai is one of the many Video Girls created by Rolex. He named her Amano Ai and set her age at 16. (As a Video Girl she does not age and will remain at 16, always) Her first name, 'Ai' means 'Love' in Japanese as well as Chinese. A non-human, her existence in the real world depends upon the continuous running of her tape on a VCR. Her tape has the standard running time of 720 hours. Belonging to the model of Video Girls made for the role of comforting emotionally hurt males, she was designed to have a beautiful and 'Kawaii' appearance. She was also given a personality that is thought to be pleasing to males, that of being demure, submissive and non-judgmental. That was, however, not the way she turned out to be...

Youta Moteuchi rented her tape on the day which Moemi expressed her love for Takashi. Heart-broken, he was walking home in the twilight when he saw the neon lights of Video Shop Gokuraku. Not entirely of his own will, he entered the shop and picked out Amano's tape out of many others. At home, he played the tape - on his spoilt VCR. Somehow, the spoilt VCR scrambled her programming and as soon as she recovered from her painful entry into the real world, she greeted Youta violently with a line like "You MORON!! Are you trying to kill me, playing my tape on that spoilt VCR!?"

It is obvious at that point that she lost all trace of her previously programmed personality. Instead, she became a playful, wild and whimsical thing. She loves to tease Youta mercilessly and rarely misses a chance to give him a good putting-down. She is also prone to violent fits during which she would beat up on Youta. This happens when she is angered... or if she happens to be in a destructively playful mood. She is pretty strong for a girl and could do a variety of kicks and throws proficiently. These martial skills could be part of her original programming that is meant for the protection of the boy she is comforting. The scrambling of her programming might have given her the freedom to use such skills at will, even on Youta, the comfortee :-) Understandably, that made her very off-putting to Youta at first.

However, what is more significant then her behavior is her capacity for human emotions, which her programming as a Video Girl had left no room for. She could experience happiness, hope, disappointment and jealousy. Like any human, she fears extinction, her feelings could get hurt, she feels resentment and she could even love. This sets her apart from 'perfect' Video Girls, who are essentially soulless beings. However, she is aware of her identity as a Video Girl and remembers that she has a set of directives to fulfill, which is to :

Provide comfort for Youta,
Provide moral support for all of Youta's endeavors,
Defend Youta when his life is threatened, (This is a guess)
NOT to fall in love or get emotionally attached to the comfortee.

Ai did try her best to fulfill her obligations as a Video Girl. She comforted Youta on the occasions when he felt sad and depressed about Moemi. She did her best in looking after Youta, doing chores like cleaning the house and cooking. (She eventually got the hang of the latter) She was always supportive in getting Youta and Moemi together. In the Manga, she played a major role in Youta's illustrated storybook project, doing the panel coloring.

At first, Ai regarded the task of comforting and looking after Youta's welfare as merely her job. However, being the nice sort, Youta was always infallibly kind and thoughtful to Ai. Once, he even bought her a dress as a sign of his appreciation. Ai was deeply touched. That cumulated in the 'First Time Wearing the Dress Youta Bought and Going on a Date Anniversary'. (Manga vol. 1 and Anime OVA 3)

Despite her best efforts, Ai found that she could not stop herself from committing the gravest sin a Video Girl can commit - that of falling in love with Youta, the comfortee. She tried, without success, to dismiss Youta's frequent kind gestures. (In the Manga, you get many scenes where Ai calls Youta 'a fool' even as she weeps, touched by some nice things he said or did for her.) She also tried to maintain a distance from Youta by being cold and even once (Manga vol. 2) putting the facade of having a boyfriend. Ultimately, she failed. Her uncontrollable love for Youta had reached the extent of preventing her from performing her job as a Video Girl - that of helping Youta develop a relationship with a human girl. She began to display signs of jealousy when Youta was together with Moemi. That brought the wrath of the Creator down upon her. Rolex forcefully recalled her back to the Video World before the end of her running time for 'reformatting'. (End of Manga vol. 2 / End of Anime OVA 5)

The central theme of the VGA Manga / Anime is of how a defective Video Girl, Amano Ai, come to love a human boy, Youta. It is also a story of her brave defiance against her immensely powerful Creator and the Gokuraku Institution. Ai is therefore the main character of the VGA series, playing an important and indispensable role. Ai also brings the elements of magic and sci-fiction into what would otherwise have been a rather bland high school love story. The introduction of the existence of the Gokuraku and its parallel dimension allowed for a number of tense and exciting scenes, such as Youta's sojourn into the Video World (Manga vol. 3 / Anime OVA 6) and Ai's battle with Video Girl Mai Kamio. (Manga vol. 6) The battle between the flawed and the perfect Video Girl would have required lots of special effects had it been made into an Anime. (Unfortunately not, *Sigh...*) Finally, it is Amano Ai's cute and irrepressible character that made VGA so appealing to its fans. Her antics also accounts for a large portion of the comical scenes in this romance-comedy.

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